North Korea threatens US over Navy move, says it is ready for war

Donald Trump ordered the US Navy strike group, Carl Vinson, to head towards the Korean peninsula on Tuesday in a show of force against the North's missile threats.

FILE PHOTO - Sailors man the rails of the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, as it departs its home port in San Diego, California August 22, 2014.Reuters

North Korea has threatened the United States, saying it is "ready to react to any mode of war" after Washington deployed a naval strike group to the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday in a show of force.

According to the state-run KCNA news agency, a spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said: "This goes to prove that the US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase". This is also Pyongyang's first comment since the deployment.

US President Donald Trump, after ordering a missile strike on Syria that was widely interpreted as a warning to North Korea over its refusal to abandon its nuclear ambitions, ordered the US Navy strike group Carl Vinson, which was planning a trip to Australia, to head towards the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula as concerns are growing about North Korea's advancing weapons program.

Trump vows to tackle North Korea

Trump seems determined to eliminate any threat from North Korea. Earlier this week, the US president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Florida, where the former pressed the latter to do more to curb North Korea's nuclear program. The US leader also asked his advisers for a range of options to eliminate North Korea's nuclear threat.

North Korea is on a quest to develop a long-range missiles that will be capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead. Till now it has staged five nuclear tests, two of which were tested last year. On 5 April North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered firing of a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. This launch came after President Trump threatened by saying that the US was prepared to go it alone in bringing the North to heel if China did not step in.